The Washington Post reports:

President Donald Trump was dejected, processing his very public split with the world’s richest man.

Rattled in the wake of Elon Musk’s public attacks and apparent call for his impeachment, Trump worked the phones, debriefing close confidants and casual acquaintances alike. His former ally was “a big-time drug addict,” Trump said at one point as he tried to make sense of Musk’s behavior, according to a person with knowledge of the call, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Musk has acknowledged using ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, which he says was prescribed for him to treat depression. The New York Times recently reported that he was using so much ketamine on the campaign trail that he told people it was affecting his bladder, and he traveled with a pill box with medication with the marking of Adderall. White House officials said that Trump’s concern about Musk’s drug use, stemming in part from media reports, was one factor driving the two men apart.

But the president, who historically hasn’t hesitated to fire off deeply personal, blistering social media posts about others who have insulted him, was more muted regarding Musk than friends and advisers expected. In the aftermath of his Thursday faceoff with Musk, he urged those around him not to pour gasoline on the fire, according to two people with knowledge of his behavior. He told Vice President JD Vance to be cautious in how he spoke publicly about the Musk situation.

But although the break between Musk and Trump only exploded into public view on Thursday, cracks in the alliance began to appear much earlier. As Musk’s “move fast and break things” bravado complicated the White House’s ambitions to remake American society, the billionaire alienated key members of the White House staff, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and quarreled with Cabinet members, physically coming to blows with one.

This account of the unraveling of the alliance between Trump and Musk is based on interviews with 17 people with knowledge of the events, including many who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about sensitive conversations.

White House officials say Trump has remained focused on his legislative and cost-cutting agenda, even as the battle between the two men has riveted Washington.

“President Trump and the entire Administration will continue the important mission of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse from our federal government on behalf of taxpayers, and the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill is critical to helping accomplish that mission,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

Behind closed doors, however, retaliation against Musk has been the topic of conversations among administration officials.

Trump on Truth Social has called for public scrutiny of Musk’s government contracts, potentially imperiling his business empire. Republicans, meanwhile, are wary of how the world’s richest man could use his deep coffers to retaliate against them, especially as he floats the launch of a third political party.

“I feel like the kids of a bitter divorce, where you’re just saying, ‘I really wish Mommy and Daddy would stop screaming,’” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on his podcast Friday.

Musk arrived in Washington in January as Trump’s most powerful ally, spending nights in the Lincoln Bedroom while serving as a top White House adviser. But there was not much of a honeymoon period, as Musk’s brute-force tactics, lack of political acumen and ideological differences with the MAGA base eroded his relationship with top administration officials and eventually the president.

The first signs of trouble emerged in February, when an email landed in inboxes throughout the government directing federal employees to describe their five accomplishments over the past week.

Cabinet officials and other agency leaders weren’t given advance notice of the memo, causing consternation at the highest levels of Trump’s administration. When officials learned the email had gone out to some federal district judges, who are not part of the executive branch, and others who handle confidential information, the feeling grew that Musk fundamentally misunderstood the federal government or did not have the dexterity to maneuver through it.

Despite the tension, Trump and his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, stuck by Musk’s side. But Wiles grew increasingly agitated about clashes between Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service and other administration leaders.

As Musk and his DOGE team attempted to slash federal grants, dismiss federal bureaucrats and shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development, he became a line of attack for Trump’s political opponents. At demonstrations across the country, signs that read “No one voted for Elon Musk” began to appear among protesters as they took to the streets.

On April 1, the first major referendum on Musk arrived. Musk had flooded Wisconsin with cash to boost the Trump-aligned candidate in a race for a seat on the state’s Supreme Court. He lost badly, a wake-up call for Republicans, who began to recognize that Musk had gone from political risk to liability.

“There’s a real recognition in the White House and on [the] Hill that the Elon brand has a real political problem,” one person familiar with the politicians’ thinking said.

At the same time, Musk — like many other business leaders — was growing disillusioned with Trump’s economic policies. On April 2, when the president rolled out tariffs intended to remake the global economy, Musk took to X to express his displeasure with the levies and call Trump’s trade adviser and longtime ally Peter Navarro “a moron.”

In private, Musk made personal appeals to Trump to reverse the tariffs. Trump did not comply, only relenting days later after a steep decline in bond markets.

Not long after, Musk’s tension with Trump’s trade team devolved into blows, in an altercation with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, said Stephen K. Bannon, the influential right-wing podcaster and longtime political adviser to Donald Trump.

In mid-April, Musk and Bessent had gone into the Oval Office to make their respective cases about their preferences for acting IRS commissioner. Trump decided to support Bessent’s choice. That disagreement was first reported by the New York Times.

After Bessent and Musk exited the Oval Office and began walking down the hallway, the two men started to exchange insults, Bannon said he was told, adding that Bessent brought up Musk’s claims that he would uncover more than $1 trillion in wasteful and fraudulent government spending, which Musk had not succeeded at doing.

“Scott said, ‘You’re a fraud. You’re a total fraud,’” Bannon said in an interview.

Musk then rammed his shoulder into Bessent’s rib cage “like a rugby player,” Bannon said, and Bessent hit him back. Multiple people stepped in to break up the scrum as the two men reached the national security adviser’s office, and Musk was shuffled out of the West Wing. [Continue reading…]